


The Contract

by Amedia



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Anonymous StrexCorp employees, Eldritch beings use antiquated technology, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Strexcorp, really once you say strexcorp the hurt/comfort and angst are pretty much a given
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amedia/pseuds/Amedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil tries to protect Carlos from StrexCorp. Things don't go as planned. But then, Station Management didn't give up NVCR without a carefully-written contract.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Contract

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on an idea I had that finally crystallized when I heard "Missing." Spoilers for "Yellow Helicopters." It will probably be jossed in an episode or two, but this is my pet theory of how to resolve the StrexCorp problem.
> 
> Also posted on LiveJournal.

_Cecil, what are you up to?_ Carlos asked himself, not for the first time. Not that Cecil's behavior had ever fallen remotely within the range of normal (there was a pun to be made on standard deviation there somewhere; Carlos shushed that part of his brain) but he had been acting even more erratic than usual, ever since the yellow helicopters had made their appearance.

Cecil had signed Carlos up as an intern. To protect him, Cecil said. Carlos had observed that the average lifespan of interns at Night Vale, once they became interns, was about half that of a typical fruit fly. The only one he knew who had survived longer than two weeks was apparently on some other plane of existence that connected the Dog Park and the house that wasn't there. He wasn't sure whether that counted as survival. Cecil had insisted that the position was entirely honorary and that there would be no actual intern activities required, and Carlos had finally, reluctantly, signed on the dotted line.

Then Cecil had banned him from the radio station.

That had tipped the balance for Carlos from mild puzzlement to acute curiosity. So he tackled the problem in the only way he knew: scientific investigation. Now he was prowling the deserted radio station in the middle of the night with a flashlight. He had also brought along some tools that he hoped would work for lockpicking, but the door to the station had been left unlocked. Something was on his side. He couldn't be sure it was luck. 

He didn't know what to look for; his standard procedure would usually have been to look for something out of place, something out of the ordinary, but in Night Vale, "out of the ordinary" was scarcely a term of exclusion. So he decided to look for whatever caught his eye. 

Typewriters. A room with typewriters? _Who uses typewriters any more?_ Carlos asked himself, and that was enough to convince him to push open the frosted glass door and go in. As he shone his flashlight around, he saw that the room was cavernous--really, too large for the building--and almost entirely empty, except for a couple of desks with typewriters right next to the entrance. Carlos thought back to his graduate school days; one of the more eccentric professors on his advising committee had refused to allow IT to install a computer in his office, and still used a typewriter. He was a stickler for carbon paper, too; every time he typed an important document, he put in two blank sheets with a carbon in between, so he'd always have a copy. 

There was a trash can between the desks. Carlos shone the flashlight into it. _Carbons_. He pulled one out, smoothed it on the surface of the desk, and held it up to the flashlight, trying to read it. Reading backwards had never been one of his talents, although somehow he wasn't surprised that it would have been a valuable skill to cultivate in Night Vale. He was able to make out the gist of it, though. It was a legal contract for the sale of Night Vale Community Radio from Current Station Management to StrexCorp. Carlos shuddered as he read the names. "Current Station Management" meant a dimly-glimpsed abomination, tentacled and monstrous. StrexCorp was a hundred times worse.

Most of the paragraphs looked like standard contract boilerplate. He reached into the wastepaper basket for the next sheet. The first paragraph on the second page was different. He stopped skimming and went back to read it carefully. "In the event of any harm or damage coming to any employees, part-time or full-time, professional or clerical, paid or volunteer, from any employee or agent of StrexCorp, Current Station Management will resume ownership of Night Vale Community Radio immediately."

 _That's why Cecil made me an intern,_ Carlos said to himself. _Anyone who works for the radio station is safe from StrexCorp. So why didn't Cecil tell me?_

He sat down at one of the desks and thought hard. Cecil knew about the protective clause, but he didn't tell Carlos; in fact, he banned Carlos from the station. Cecil wasn't planning to exploit the protective clause simply as ongoing protection for NVCR employees; he had something else up his sleeve. Carlos had a pretty good idea what that something was. Cecil's broadcasts had been getting more and more provocative. Literally. He wanted to _provoke_ StrexCorp into doing something . . . something that would entail harm or damage to Cecil himself. Then Station Management--that eldritch horror for which he felt strangely nostalgic--would take back the radio station, and without the radio station, StrexCorp would not be able to hold onto Night Vale. 

Carlos tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry. He was caught between admiration and anger, and a growing sense of apprehension that was rapidly becoming full-blown fear. Something was going to happen. Something terrible.

The door suddenly swung open. The lights in the hallway were on. Carlos turned and saw two men in StrexCorp security uniforms holding flashlights and guns pointed at him. He automatically put his hands up, the carbons still clutched in one of them. 

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" asked one of the men.

Carlos actually had an answer prepared; he had planned to push up his sleeve and show them the NVCR intern identification tattoo still healing on his left forearm, and claim that he had come back to finish working on a project. Then the other man spoke.

"We got a tip someone was trying to break in," said the other. "You must be our burglar."

 _Cecil_. Cecil was the one who had left the door unlocked. He must be in the building somewhere; he probably called in the tip himself, hoping they would fail to recognize him, that they would assume he was a burglar, that they would shoot--Carlos refused to finish the thought.

"That's me," he said. "I'm your burglar." Holding his flashlight high, like a weapon, he ran directly toward the men in the doorway. He heard the shots, heard one bullet zing harmlessly past, felt the other like a punch in the chest, felt himself falling, falling. He never felt himself hitting the floor.

* * *

Carlos opened his eyes. His chest ached and stung and burned where he had been hit. He gasped for breath; it felt as if he were drowning in his own blood. But his head was pillowed on something soft, and a cool hand was patting his cheek, and a beloved voice was calling his name. "Carlos? Carlos!"

Carlos struggled to bring the world into focus. He was on the floor in the hallway outside the office with the typewriters. The security men were standing nearby, looking perplexed and uncertain. His head was cradled in Cecil's lap. He was reasonably certain he was dying. He waved the hand that still held the carbons. "Cecil . . . I found the contract."

"Shhhh," said Cecil, his voice choked with tears. "Help's on the way."

"Don't cry, Cecil," said Carlos. "You've made me the happiest man . . . " he ran out of breath, and had to stop talking. He felt Cecil's disobedient tears falling on his face.

Then he heard Cecil gasp. Carlos struggled to turn his head and succeeded just in time to see the two men from StrexCorp vanish as if they'd been vaporized. "Close your eyes, Carlos," Cecil whispered urgently, his own eyes tightly shut. "We're not meant to see this."

A distorted, inhuman, low-pitched wailing was approaching through the corridor, accompanied by the wet slapping sound of hideous appendages. There was a sense of _presence_ so terrifying that Carlos could feel Cecil shivering. There was a pause. _They're right next to us,_ thought Carlos. He wished they would pass on and let him die in peace, in Cecil's arms where he had already found a measure of heaven.

Something like the tip of a tentacle smacked against his chest with a sound like the crack of a whip. Pain reverberated from the spot, echoing through his body. Carlos choked and began to cough, half sitting up with Cecil's support as he spat out the blood that had pooled in his lungs. He took a deep, unobstructed breath and turned to find Cecil staring at him. "Carlos?"

Carlos patted his chest in disbelief. Not only did it no longer hurt; it felt as if he had never been wounded to begin with. He tilted his head toward the now-closed frosted glass door. "Did _they_ do this?"

Cecil smiled. "Perhaps it was their way of saying 'thank you.'"

Carlos smiled back. "Seems like a big thank-you just for getting their station back." 

"I don't think that's all they got back," said Cecil slowly. "Listen."

Carlos listened. "I don't hear anything."

"No helicopters," said Cecil. "They usually make a pass over the city right about now. That's how I picked the time for the burglary." He looked at his watch, the truest timepiece in Night Vale. "It's after three o'clock, and there's been no 'Three o'clock and all's dandy' from the town crier."

"But the contract only gave them back the station," said Carlos. "At least, I think that was all . . . I hadn't finished reading it." He smoothed the carbons out on his lab coat, which was covered in too much blood for a little carbon to make any difference now, and held them up to the light.

Cecil ran his finger along a line of type near the bottom. "If any employee or agent of StrexCorp makes Cecil cry, no mercy shall be shown." He and Carlos stared at each other. "Does this mean StrexCorp is gone from Night Vale itself, not just the radio station?" Cecil asked.

"I don't know," said Carlos. "But I do know one thing." He tilted his head toward the frosted glass door again. "You've got a fan club."


End file.
